By now, from the Press and other
sources, members will be aware that Mole Valley has had many comments on its
Green Belt Review. This was conducted
because of a promise made to SEEDA (South East England Development Authority)
around 2006 to provide some 3760 homes between then and 2026. With 1640 already built, that leaves 2120 to
be constructed over the next 13 years or 163 each year. This figure refers to the whole of Mole
Valley and not just to Leatherhead.
Other members may well have read
the Green Belt Review’s comments and noticed that a considerable number of
areas are being looked at by developers and landowners. Some of these are new, some date from the
Draft Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment. Some are in the Green Belt and some are
classed as Reserve Housing sites. The
land between Cleeve Road and Randalls Road, currently under discussion, is an
example of this latter classification.
Some are simply possible sites in the future, according to their
owners. Those sites currently in the
Green Belt are recognized as such and would need that restriction lifted. The existence and listing of all these
sites gives Mole Valley grounds for refusal of unsuitable applications.
However, the recent whiff of more
utterly desirable sites becoming available because of the Review has prompted
around 9 developers to make their somewhat alarming suggestions. Three developers are after roughly the same
patch to the south of Leatherhead. But
the main hurdle they all face is the Green Belt and so, at the moment, they
simply form a “wish list.”
Nevertheless, the Council will look at them and possibly add one or two
to their stockpile of land available.
The LRA feels that any breach of
the Green Belt will lead to a softening up of the whole circumference and must,
therefore, be resisted. This was a
brilliant strategy conceived at the beginning of the last century and enshrined
in law after the Second World War. We
want it to continue both for our own sake and for that of our children.
Mrs. C. Brown (Planning
sub-committee chairman)
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